{"id":5521,"date":"2016-11-10T10:38:21","date_gmt":"2016-11-10T10:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.petesadventureride.com\/?p=5521"},"modified":"2016-11-27T10:43:34","modified_gmt":"2016-11-27T10:43:34","slug":"malaysia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.petesadventureride.com\/2016\/11\/10\/malaysia\/","title":{"rendered":"Malaysia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday Evening 7th November 2016<\/p>\n

Upon reaching the airport and paying the 300,000 rupiah fare, I found a flight out via Lion Air which left in 45min. Sweet. Except it didn’t. The flight was for no given reason was delayed for another 45 mins. I was a short flight and I was in Penang as dusk was approaching, Immediately found I bus destined for Georgetown. Had a good conversation with the the bus driver for the 30mins or so that it took. I alighted at the ferry terminal where I should have been able to catch the bus to my hastily booked hotel. Missed the bus and the next wasn’t for 30 mins. So for the second time in a day I caught a taxi. The Hotel was built in 1946 and would have been fantastic in its day. Situated on the bay front. Whilst it had lost some of it’s glamour it was still well maintained with expansive rooms and lounging areas. It also lacked a few modern amenities. By this time it was around 9:30 pm and \u00a0was getting hungry. There was a nice seafood restaurant next ot the hotel, however, after being seated and ordering a beer and some lemon chicken, I was informed that they had stopped cooking. Great as least I got my beer. I ended up walking at least a kilometer before finding a KFC. It had been along day and an anxious one. That anxiety would continue until I was reunited with my bike.<\/p>\n

Tuesday 8th November 2016<\/p>\n

Mr Ahnan from Belawan had given me the name and address of the person I was meant to contact in Penang, however, it wasn’t Mr Lim. So I decided to would go to Mr Lim’s office to see what the deal was. The bike was not due to arrive till 10 or 12noon the next day. After a good 3km walk I found the office of Mr Lim. He was most helpful and called to the other agent to transfer the unloading and all it associated paper work to \u00a0him. I was much relieved. Mr. Lim has been assisting bikers with this Indonesia to Malaysia leg for years. I apparently am the oldest he has helped. I was to return the next day and we would go and retrieve my bike. With all that out of the way I made my way back towards a different hotel which did have all the modern amenities. On the way I walked into a large modern mall and found a Subway outlet, so with some familiar western food on offer I sat down and enjoyed my spicy Italian roll. It was really good as it also brought back the memories of Cherry as this was her favourite as well. If ever I have a Subway it is always s Spicy Italian and an oat bun and ranch dressing. The afternoon was spent trying to sort out the fiasco of the permit to enter Thailand with a vehicle. Newly introduced it basically means to have to get a permit to temporarily bring a vehicle into Thailand. Even with a permit you are restricted to the province into which you entered and have to exit at the same border crossing as you entered. \u00a0This was all designed to stop the surge of Chinese who were driving into Thailand having accidents or disobeying the roads rules and then skipping back to China to avoid any consequences It worked but it has caused a big problem for me who wants to traverse many provinces and exit Thailand into Myanmar. So with perseverance I managed to contact Mrs Thip, a contact given to my by Josh. She said she was able to help and sent me all the information on the required documentation. This was turning into a long day as well.\u00a0I was still pretty tired from the previous days events so I was a food market dinner and off to bed for me. After a beer of course.<\/p>\n

Wednesday 9th November 2016<\/p>\n

Today was the day to find out if the bike and all the attached luggage made it intact. I had to be at Mr Lim’s office by 10am so I set out on the 3km walk fairly early. I arrived in the vicinity around 9am which gave me time to have a roadside breakfast of noodle soup and coffee. I also got to explore a couple of the old jetty complexes of houses built by different Chinese clans over the water. These, over the years, have just turned into tourists shops. Adjacent to these jetties are the pedal trishaws to take the tourist on a very slow tour around all the other little shops that abound in this old Chinese quarter of Georgetown. I think I must have done too much touring as these areas sort of annoy me now.<\/p>\n

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view across the straight to the mainland<\/p><\/div>\n

I made my way back to Mr Lim’s where, to my surprise standing next to their 650 Suzukies, were a Polish couple. The first motorbike adenturers I had seen since leaving home. They introduced themselves as as Ania and Michael. They were going in the opposite direction to myself and were there to ship their bikes over to Belawan. I was given some good info on on few countries of the countries I had yet to pass through namely India and Pakistan. After finalising the cash side of things I was soon on the back of Mr Lim’s bike and heading to the port on the mainland.<\/p>\n

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Ania Mr Lim and Michael on the ferry<\/p><\/div>\n

On arrival at the wharf with the boat docked along side, I could see no sign of my bike. Whist I was hastily looking all around Michael calmly pointed out the bike which was under covers, behind a pile of sacks, on the other side of the boat, As the men removed the covers I was gratified to see it was all still intact. Just got to get it off the boat in the same state. It was rather surreal to see my BM sailing through the air in a couple of rope slings and gently coming to rest on the wharf.<\/p>\n\n\t\t